


Tethered

by AdamantEve



Series: Stranded [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-31 16:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantEve/pseuds/AdamantEve
Summary: She was similar to the Betty of his dreams, wrapped in white lace and satin, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Every detail of her was perfect, from the pointy tips of her elegant shoes to the smooth glossiness of her hair.Similar. But not quite.This was not his Betty, exactly. Perhaps this was Alice’s Betty, or maybe Phillip’s? After all, he was the guy she was supposed to marry.





	Tethered

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I wrote between moments of quiet.

  
Art created by [@aaa-loves](https://aam-loves.tumblr.com/post/187997132271/this-is-so-beautiful-i-couldnt-help-myself) on Tumblr. Follow her [now](https://aam-loves.tumblr.com/post/187997132271/this-is-so-beautiful-i-couldnt-help-myself).

She was similar to the Betty of his dreams, wrapped in white lace and satin, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Every detail of her was perfect, from the pointy tips of her elegant shoes to the smooth glossiness of her hair.

Her golden hair, so often gathered in a tight ponytail, was cinched even tighter now in a classic chignon, held by a hairpiece designed to look like a spray of flowers and dotted by Mother of Pearl beads. 

Her makeup was impeccable and her green eyes glowed against the view of the setting sun. 

_ Similar. _

_ But not quite. _

This was not his Betty, exactly. Perhaps this was Alice’s Betty, or maybe Phillip’s? After all, he was the guy she was supposed to marry.

**********************

Jughead wondered if it mattered. Nothing had since he found out that Betty was marrying her British solicitor boyfriend.

Her engagement seemed so idyllic, really. Ridiculously so. This Englishman, who spoke with an accent that everyone and their American mother was swooning over, graduated from Cambridge and shared a name with kings and princes. He was _ almost _of the peerage, with a lineage classy enough to trace some of it back to nobility about a century back. 

And Betty. Oh, Betty.

*****************

She became everything Jughead thought she could be without him. After she received an acceptance letter from Boston University, she pursued her dreams of journalism.

He remembered the day she went to him, her acceptance letter in her hand. 

At that point they’d have been broken up for almost a month, but the wounds were still fresh, the pain still real. He still dreamt of her with him, could still feel the phantom press of her body in bed, and the motions they went through to get from kindling desire to blazing ecstasy. 

So he could barely look her in the eyes when she stood at his trailer’s stoop, her eyes shining with impossible hope.

She had asked him, without much preamble, whether she should take the CUNY offer instead, because that meant she would be close enough to spend weekends in Riverdale.

She hadn’t said, “To be close to you.” 

No. That would have been heavy handed, and Betty had been light of hand with him ever since he broke up with her outside of the Whyte Wyrm. She had said, “To be close to home.”

Jughead had wanted nothing more than to tell her, “YES. I love you. Don’t fly so far. Don’t leave me in Riverdale. Baby, you and I, we’ll ride or die,” but he loved her too much to hold her back. 

Boston University’s journalism program was the best in the country. Maybe the world.

He simply told her, his hands pressed over hers and his eyes burning from the tears he was holding back. “Go to Boston, Betty. You deserve—“ _ better _“—everything you worked hard for.”

She fled in tears and he hated himself for weeks after. Hated himself since.

Somehow it felt worse than breaking her heart outside the Wyrm, because then he was resolute, now he was just broken. 

He never stopped loving her. Her accomplishments still filled him with pride. They kept in touch through social media and she sent him mailed greeting cards, with handwritten messages like, “Thinking about you this Christmas,” or “The world’s a smarter place with you in it. Happy birthday, Jug,” but he never dared write her a letter back. He never dared pay her a visit at Boston. He was too weak for her, tormented by memories of the happiness he threw away and the way their bodies were perfectly in tune dressed or naked, how still he dreamed of making love to her like he used to, only to wake up and realize those were things in the past that he would never get back.

He couldn’t possibly stay away if he ever tried to put his heart into words. Or if he went to her, pretending to drop in because he happened to be in the neighborhood. He couldn’t, because doing so was jumping into a chasm with no parachute. He would freefall, and he would drag her down with him.

He heard about the boyfriends she had at college, then after—Archie or Veronica inadvertently kept him abreast.

In the meantime, he stayed in Riverdale, a gang leader who fancied himself capable of making the lives of his gang members better. He tried, in his own way, to get them to go straight, and he succeeded in others, not with most. He had the occasional liaison with women from out of town, usually on nights when the loneliness weighed heavy, but romantic relationships eluded him. He thought, too, that no one should be subjected to the life he led.

He could’ve been dead at 20, were it not for his writing, which he never abandoned.

In the absence of Betty, his writing kept him sane. He escaped in his fiction, without thinking it would ever be his saving grace from his increasingly meaningless life.

But it was his deliverance, and it did, with one call from a literary agent, pull him out of his pit. 

He got a book deal—a large book deal for his first manuscript, and its success sealed his career, with a publishing house based in Boston locking him for two more. 

For the first time in his life, he felt hope, that he would actually amount to something, and that maybe, just maybe, he might not be so bad for Betty after all.

She was dating that English dude, sure, but he thought perhaps he could leave a note on her Facebook messenger. Just a simple invitation for drinks because he was driving into town.

He obsessed. How should he word the message? Should he hint at something more? Should he tell her he missed her? 

The draft sat in his Notes unsent for hours.

The next day, just after his editor told him than his second book was about to go to print, he went online and saw that Betty had posted a photo of herself, holding up her hand with a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.

He sent his message straight to the trash.

******************

He had dreaded her wedding day ever since. 

His invitation came in the mail and reading it felt like punishment. “Jughead Jones + 1” almost made him want to vomit.

It took him a few days, but he RSVPed like the good friend he was, eschewing the +1 without the slightest hint of irony—not that he could say much with the tiny space meant for “1” attending, with no plus in sight. 

He showed up for the engagement dinner, too, all soft smiles and congratulations, and truly, he meant it when he told her, her hands pressed between both of his, “I’m happy for you, Betty.”

When he leaned over to press a kiss on her cheek, he might have held on a shade longer, but he managed to express with his eyes that his happiness for her was real, even as his heart crumbled at the look she cast back at him.

He couldn’t bear to think that she felt pity for him, not because she knew he still loved her, but because he was obviously still single. She couldn’t possibly know he longed for more than just her friendship. He had shown that he cared, but he was meticulous about making her think that his romantic feelings had been packed into the nostalgia section of their archived lives. 

“You and Phillip are—are perfect together,” he managed to say.

And he saw that flicker in her eyes, and he instantly realized that the word “perfect” still shot venom in her veins. 

“Perfect in the best way, Betts,” he added, gently.

Her eyelashes fluttered, her lips poised to speak, then she smiled. “Right, of course, Jug. Thank you.”

He knew her, still. She had meant to say something else, but she didn’t say it. There was that instinct in him to ask her what it was she wanted to say, to help her speak her mind even if it wasn’t pretty, even if it wasn’t Alice-approved.

But he didn’t give into the instinct. He let her thank him and he carried on as if he didn’t know, because he felt he had lost the right to ask for more of her.

And as soon as he could, while the speeches were being made and glasses were being raised, he excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when no one at their table cared, he left the party.

He couldn’t bear it any longer.

15 minutes later, as he sat in his lonely cab home, he got a text from Betty. “I’m sorry I missed you before you had to go.”

Again, he didn’t dare write her back, especially now.

*******************

Phillip’s best friend invited him and Archie to the bachelor’s party as Betty’s bosom friends, and Archie begged him to come, so he went, being his unfriendly self, but the Brits seemed to think he was being some eccentric genius, because they seemed to like his sarcasm, and he thought that just for that one night, he could drink a little bit more alcohol than was his wont.

It was while Phillip had his arm slung over Jughead that Phillip said, “So you two blokes grew up with Betty. She calls both of you her oldest and best friends.”

Archie, that daft nitwit, was probably about to blab that Jughead was more than just her “best friend” at one time in their lives, but Jughead kicked him under the table and said, “That’s right, from our treehouse days to high school graduation. Betty’s like a sister to us.”

It felt like vomiting nails to say that, but he wasn’t going to ruin what Betty had. Jughead had sacrificed too much to make a mess of things now.

After Phillip dropped them off at Archie’s accommodations, Archie asked him, “Dude, why didn’t you let me tell him about you and Betty?”

Jughead was beyond exhausted by then, too tired to justify himself. “It doesn’t matter, Arch. Just let Betty live her life.”

Archie’s scowl was never so deep. “Fuck that, Jug. He just told us that Betty never told him about you! Why would she keep your history from him? If she really loved him, why would she keep you a secret?”

Anger roiled in Jughead’s chest, and the anguish he’d been feeling the last few months at Betty’s engagement rushed out in one breath. “Because I’m a part of her life she’d rather forget, you fucking idiot! Do I have to spell it out for you, you dumb fuck? Just leave it be and stay out of it!”

He supposed he should’ve been grateful that Archie didn’t break his nose. 

In a spectacular show of restraint, Archie turned around and walked towards his hotel doors without another word.

Jughead walked off in a rage, too, summoning an uber as he did so. It was while he was sliding into the back seat of a Lexus that he got a text from Archie.

_ You and I both know that Betty would never want to erase what you and she had. She would’ve followed you to the ends of the earth if you had let her, and if what I’ve been seeing the last few weeks is right, she still would. YOU’RE the goddamn idiot. _

Jughead tried to stop the tide of tears with the heel of his hands, but his heart continued to break.

By the end of his ride, it would be nothing but powder.

***********************

So as they all waited for Betty to walk down the aisle at Riverdale chapel, back in their childhood town, the bridal march playing in the background, Jughead braced himself for the worst day of his life.

But she didn’t show up. Ten minutes after the music started playing, the soft commotion of quiet panic began to filter from the back. 

Veronica, her Maid of Honor, peeked out of the double doors in the back of the chapel and waved at Archie.

_ “Shit,” _Archie whispered, gripping Jughead’s arm as he went. “Come with me, idiot. Something is happening.”

Jughead followed blindly, too caught up in the throes of his despair to question him.

When they got to the bridal chamber, Veronica was on the phone, but whoever was on the other line didn’t seem to be picking up. “I don’t know where she is. Betty is fucking missing.”

“W-what?” Jughead spat out. “What do you mean she’s missing? You were together at the hotel. How could you lose her?”

Archie, however, seemed to find this amusing, his eyes shining with mirth. _ “Dude.” _

“I swear to God, Archie!” Veronica hissed. “Don’t you start.”

For once, Archie didn’t whither at Veronica’s firm tone. He clasped Jughead by both shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “Jug, if anyone would know where she is, it would be you.”

Jughead swallowed. “But what if—“

“If she’s not where you think she is, then this isn’t about you.”

About him. 

If he crashed and burned, he could blame Archie. Maybe.

He turned to leave. He knew where she could be.

**********************

She kind of looked like a ghost, sitting between the dusty shelves and the central table of the Blue and Gold in her spectacular wedding gown. Were it not for the phone in her hands, alight with text bubbles as her fingers flew over the pad, she might have seemed like a spectre from a different time. 

Seconds after she sent the last text, the phone rang in her hands, Phillip’s name on the screen. She declined the call then shut her phone off, her face sinking into her palms.

Jughead’s tread made a sound and she looked up at his arrival. She became a vision, all liquid eyes and pink lips. 

“Jug.”

He steadied his nerves, sitting opposite her on the floor. “I think you have to _ wear _ something _ old _ and something blue. Not _ be _in it.”

She laughed, even as her eyes leaked water. He reached into his pocket and gave her his handkerchief. She took it with a grateful sigh and dabbed her eyes. “My heart feels old. Feels blue, too.”

He wanted to hold her hands, but he wasn’t sure if he can keep it together after that. “What’s going on, Cooper?”

She sniffed, staring at the handkerchief in her hands and running the pad of her thumb against the silken JJ embroidered on the corner of it. “God, I gave you this nearly a decade ago, Juggie. It looks unused.”

“Eight years ago, actually, and just how many white handkerchief occasions did you expect the Serpent King to attend?”

She nodded. She didn’t argue that point. “I ruined many of these before I got the JJ _ just _right. I wanted it to be perfect for you.”

“I’d have loved it if it were as crooked as an S.” He loved everything about her. Everything she gave him, material or not. Even her anger had felt like a gift, sweet punishment for breaking her heart all those years ago.

She cast him a liquid smirk, looking away shyly at, perhaps, what she saw in his eyes. “I know, but I never wanted you to feel that I took you for granted. I wanted to give you my best, too, even if you didn’t demand it from me. Even when you loved me imperfect and broken.”

He strained to keep his own anguish at bay. “You were never broken to me, Betts. I pushed you away because I was afraid to be the one to break you.”

Her sniffing started up again and the handkerchief covered her eyes. “Together we were whole, Jug. I haven’t really been in one piece since.”

He wasn’t strong enough for this. “Betts, how can you say that? Your career—your relationship—your life is the stuff of dreams!”

“Not my dreams!” she interjected, a rough edge to her tone as her shoulders tensed, but the fight withered from her body, softening in both bone and voice. “At least not all of it… I don’t—I can’t marry Phillip. I can’t. He’s not…” 

She didn’t go on.

“Then why did you tell him, yes?” His tone was gentle, without judgment. 

“I thought I wanted to. I thought he was my chance at love.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t want this for her, either; feeling empty no matter how hard she tried to fill that void. The pain was all too familiar and she didn’t deserve it. “Oh, Betts…”

She took both his hands in hers and he wasn’t strong enough to remove them. “I went to you before, remember? It felt like a hundred years ago, but it was the day I got my acceptance letter to Boston University. And I asked you if I should stay. You told me to go. And I did go, because you didn’t love me anymore.”

His fingers tightened around hers, his heart constricting at her words. “Betts, _ no. _Please, no.”

“But these last couple of weeks, I just—I felt something. If you tell me right now that I was imagining everything—“

He couldn’t let her go on. He took her face between his hands and kissed her. Hard. Like the years he kept away was nothing but pulling taught an elastic tether, stretching ever so tightly away, but at this very moment, it had snapped and he was hurtling right back into her. 

He was pulling her close, his arms full of her, her body fusing back with his. The jagged cracks that became of them when they were torn apart were fitting back together like the pieces of a long dismantled puzzle. 

His tongue tasted hers again, and the memory of that touch opened a floodgate of emotions, of remembered caresses, of the moments that made them belong to one another like soulmates.

They were gasping when they tore apart to breathe.

“I _ never _ stopped loving you, Betty,” he said as he took life-giving breaths of air. “Never. It was the _ one thing _ that gave me the strength to let you go. I need you to understand this. And look at the places you’d gone. The heights you’d reached.”

She shook her head, grabbing the collar of his coat to give him a gentle shake. She was crying. “I wish you would stop thinking that I couldn’t have gone so far if you’d been there with me.”

“I would’ve held you back. I was already dragging you down with me. When you were willing to do anything to stay a part of my life—when Penny threatened to hurt me by hurting you—I knew I was dead weight.”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Didn’t it occur to you, Jug, that I might be strong enough to take you with me? Did I get in the way of your writing?”

He felt her hurt, just like that night at the Wyrm and that morning at the stoop of his trailer. “Of course not.”

“We would’ve lifted one another up,” she said, her eyes pleading for him to listen. “We would’ve pushed through it all together, instead of muddling through, finding ways to forget that we desperately need one another.”

He did try to forget. He tried his hardest, but he had long realized that he would never love anyone like he loved her. 

“What I need you to understand, Jug, is that we will always be better together. Always. I love you. You know this, don’t you? I’m—I’m furious at you for all those years, but you and I, we need to talk. We need to _ stop _and talk.”

He nodded. “Yes. Yes, we do.”

Their breathing settled, and they were looking at one another. Immediately, he could see the difference, the brilliance of the light in her eyes and the way her bun had gotten free of its trappings, cascading her long golden hair down her shoulders. 

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his. “Juggie, take me to your hotel room.” She kissed him, this time with a heat that scattered his thoughts and possibly compromised his judgement. 

He closed his eyes, giving into the kiss. “And what, Betts?”

Her only response was the searing hot touch of her lips on his, her hands sliding up the sides of his face so she could tilt it to deepen the kiss even more.

His groan of longing signalled his surrender.

“And the wedding? What are we going to do about that?”

“I’ve called it off. I told Phillip I can’t. I told him I was in love with someone else.”

He reached up, sliding the pad of his thumb against the apple of her cheek. It felt unbelievably surreal to hold her again. It felt like coming home. “I wanted to call you. Before all this. Before the engagement.”

She let a few heartbeats pass before responding. “Not sooner?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t have anything to offer before that.”

She frowned. “Offer? I wouldn’t have asked for anything.”

“I was a thug. I was nothing.”

“You were _ something, _ to me!”

She was always fierce, especially in her love. 

He didn’t deserve her, but what they were coming back to now, he wanted it desperately. He wanted to believe in them again. 

“Let’s try this again,” she whispered. “You and I, Juggie. What do you say?”

There was a lot to say, but words could come later. He wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her closer for a kiss.

He inhaled her, feeling her warmth in all the parts they connected. He’d missed this for far too long. He didn’t know how he managed to live without it.

When they stopped to breathe, he rubbed her nose against his, starting the words he hadn’t dared to speak. “Yeah, Betts. I’d like nothing more than that.”

fin.


End file.
